


You're the Lucky Ones

by OpalizedFossil



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Hurt & Comfort, Loneliness, Psychological issues, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 07:59:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10552840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpalizedFossil/pseuds/OpalizedFossil
Summary: "Shadows settle on the place that you leftOur minds are troubled by the emptinessDestroy the middle, it's a waste of timeFrom the perfect start to the finish lineAnd if you're still breathing,You're the lucky ones"Holly Blue Agate sits alone in her room and contemplates her own existence. What she realizes, she finds that she doesn't like.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A vent fic.

Holly Blue Agate is alone in her room.

Her quarters are small and clean, with only a small sofa, a side table, and a bookcase within, with the front wall eerily aglow with a plethora of screens, all displaying images from around the Zoo. There are many glimpses into the human habitats, where the descendents of earthlings long gone sleep peacefully beneath an artificial moon, scattered on the stomachs and sides among the soft, lush grass, some curled up close to one another, a child nestled into its mother. There are many glimpses more into the other areas of the Zoo, the empty hallways, the towering corridors with their glaringly bright lights reflected on glistening, pink tiles, and, most importantly, the place where the amethysts and jaspers and one runty carnelian sleep.

It's a spacious chamber, walls lined from floor to ceiling with little cubbies that oh-so-strongly resemble the very holes that the quartzes emerged from thousands of years before. The eerie glower of a nearby moon glares constantly down on them through the domed window above, which might have cast them in an otherworldly glow if not for the artificial lights all around them that shone even brighter.

Holly watches them more than she cares to think about. Sometimes, she watches them because their energy and enthusiasm are entertaining, antics best observed from the tall, leather chair she sits in behind the monitors, much like the captain's chair seen in many ships and sat in by many proud pilots and renowned generals, yet another testament to her ego. One of them will lie down, among cushions scattered across the tiles, stolen away from a chamber they were forbidden to be in but snuck into anyways, and another will sneak up on her, springing on her from behind like some playful creature from the earth, surprising her into a frantic frenzy of flailing limbs and startled shouts. And then the two will wrestle like kittens, battering each other playfully before finally settling down again, usually together. It's ridiculous and unrefined. But, it's certainly entertaining.

Other times, she watches them because of the terrifying reality that she doesn't want to confess to, the thing she hides beneath her tightly woven facade of arrogance and power and _control_.

Control.

It's something she's long since lost. The Zoo is no longer hers to control. The quartzes are no longer hers to control or, at least, if she tries it, she's very nearly guaranteed to be wholly disobeyed. The facility that was hers to guard and protect had been infiltrated by not one, not two, but _half a dozen_ outsiders from the dreaded traitor colony. She had been too sure of herself to see it until it was too late, and she had been shown up and left tied and bound in her own whip before the very charges she had demanded the respect of. Needless to say, there is no respect for her now. She's shown weakness. And weakness is a dangerous thing.

The Zoo hasn't descended into total chaos; the quartzes think highly enough of the humans in their care to maintain them even without her direction, and to tend to them means to tend to the rest of the facility, as well. Repairs are still made in a timely fashion, albeit with much more rough-housing and shouting and _running_ than she would have liked. But it's no longer her place to say.

Since the traitors came, Holly Blue has seldom left her room. She tried it at first, when she believed that she might still regain control of them, but it took her a matter of hours to completely and utterly _give up_. So, she had retreated to the one place that was hers and only hers, to cry quietly in the still silence of her private quarters, away from the prying eyes of quartzes that she was not entirely certain didn't still want revenge on her.

She does what she can to entertain herself, but her choices are limited. She has her books, all read from cover-to-cover a hundred times or more, and she has the monitors. The monitors have been her only portal to the outside world - if the space right outside her bedroom door can be considered _outside_ \- for weeks now. And, quite frankly, she's getting slightly stir-crazy in her self-inflicted solitary confinement.

Holly watches the monitors now. She watches the amethysts and the jaspers and the one runty carnelian. She watches how all of them pile among the plush, pink cushions and warm bodies already scattered across the floor, cuddling and nuzzling and just very outwardly expressing their penultimate affection for one another. She watches how they _coexist_ , how they live together peacefully and never once have reason to question one another.

And that's when she starts to feel it again, that hollow, cold feeling creeping slowly into her darkest depths. It leeches slowly into her mind, where it sits heavy like a stone, a thought persistently gnawing away at her like a trapped animal at its snared leg. She knows that if she lets it fester for long, it will eat her alive. And so she's quick to chase it away, but it doesn't stay away for long.

She sits there and thinks about it. It's the worst possible thing she could do.

Holly Blue Agate is alone in her room, quietly spectating on something she unknowingly wants, hungering for a thing she has never known.

She's lonely. Achingly, painfully lonely. The type of lonely that sits in the back of her mind and festers even when she tries to mend the mental wound. The type of lonely that will eat her alive if she doesn't act soon.

They're right there. They're not seeking revenge. They're not out to get her. They're glancing up towards cameras and gazing purposefully into their bubbled lenses, with sad, solemn looks that anyone else might have seen pity in. But, not Holly Blue.

She's proud. She's strong. She doesn't need their pity. She doesn't need their _love_. Companionship is beneath a gem of her caliber. She's an agate, not some pathetic pearl pitifully pleading for her master's love. Quartzes are meant to function as units; companionship is crucial to their ability to work together effectively. But, she's an agate, and agates are intended to function alone. This is how it's _supposed_ to be. These are thoughts she should not be having, and she most certainly should not be feeling _lonely_.

But, even as she stares at the screens in the silence of her room, she somehow misses the one who rises and walks down the hall, to hesitate briefly before knocking quietly on her tightly sealed door.

Holly jumps. The silence had become so standard that even the most mundane sound startles her. A knock, no less, from someone who undoubtedly wants in to _talk_ to her, as if words could ever help her now. She's a worthless gem gone awry from her station, no longer fulfilling her purpose, no longer pleasing her Diamond. As soon as word slips free that the rebels were here, she's a gem as good as shattered.

But, this terrifying reality also means that she has nothing left to lose and so, she opens the door, peering through the crack with a crazed, blue eye with a pupil shrunk down to a pinprick. Her hair has come unraveled. She looks slightly undone. She's chewing at her plush lower lip and worrying sores into the tender skin that she's already nibbled raw.

One of the amethysts stands before her, hands raised in a nonthreatening display as she quietly steps back, momentarily shocked at the sight of her once tightly buttoned up manager come so suddenly undone. Holly doesn't address her, as she's since forgotten her designation and no longer recalls what to call her, and so it's the amethyst who speaks first.

"H - Hi, Holly."

She almost anticipates a growl, with how completely and utterly _animal_ Holly looks at the moment. How long has she been in the room? How long has she been alone? She knew that it had been some time since she last saw her, but perhaps it had been even longer than she thought.

"You...okay?" the amethyst prompts as Holly steps aside, returning quietly to her captain's chair and leaving the door silently ajar.

"I am fine," Holly tells her. Her voice isn't as authoritative as the amethyst remembers. It cracks. It breaks. It sounds like the voice of someone who has not said a single word in weeks.

"You're not fine," the quartz replies pointedly, standing awkwardly alongside her chair and scratching at an itch that doesn't exist as she watches Holly watching them, the misery so deeply etched in her solemn features that the amethyst can feel only sympathy for her. Sometime ago, she might have believed that this was what Holly deserved. Now, she realizes that no one deserves this.

Holly Blue has been in her room all this time, watching them together while she feels profoundly and obviously alone, contemplating her own mortality as the threat lingers forever on the horizon, feeling completely and utterly useless and uncharacteristically anxious.

"Holly...," the amethyst says, but Holly hardly hears her. She focuses on the screens, or at least pretends to. She focuses on anything but the amethyst. She knows that if she focuses on her, she will break down. She'll break down right there in front of her and cry and show weakness yet again.

Then, the amethyst reaches for her. She rests a broad, flat hand on her shoulder. Alarmed, Holly looks at her, the touch electric and tingling through her shoulder and down the length of her arm and sending shockwaves straight through her chest. She realizes that it's the amethyst with the curl that frames her face on one side, and she remembers, suddenly, that she is called 8XJ, and then she altogether breaks down.

The touch was too much for her after all this time. 8XJ watches her with sympathy as the tears start to flow, bubbling up and brimming in her blue eyes before flowing freely down her cheeks, to bead on her chin before dripping down onto the caplet now crumpled around her chest. Holly watches her back, uncertain of where to look other than right into her eyes, where she sees the pity that she hates so much and a spectrum of other emotions she's likely never felt and certainly doesn't understand.

"You should come sleep with us," 8XJ tells her, in a voice much softer than Holly has ever heard a quartz use when she isn't sneaking around, "We're not going to hurt you, you know. We're not out to get you."

Holly sniffles. It's wet and ugly. She _feels_ wet and ugly.

8XJ clears her throat, then kneels down and reaches for Holly, gathering her up in her burly arms and bringing her in close to her chest, situating her awkwardly in her lap as the silent tears turn into wet, loud, snotty sobs. She holds her close even when she feels the warm wetness of tears accumulate on the shoulder of her uniform, where Holly's head limply rests.

Holly lays there and feels vulnerable. When she speaks, it comes out like a hiccup, "How...?"

8XJ looks at her. "How what?"

"How can you...feel sorry for me?" Holly half-mumbles and half-croaks, and 8XJ almost doesn't understand her.

"You mean, because of how things used to be?" 8XJ asks. Holly nods weakly. "Because no one deserves this."

Holly snuffles. Then, she hiccups. It's a cute noise, and 8XJ might have chuckled to hear her supervisor make such a sound had the circumstances not been so dire.

"No one deserves to lock themselves away in a room, because they don't feel like they're good enough, or because they feel like they're worthless, or because they feel like they're too rotten inside to ever be forgiven," 8XJ almost coos at her. Holly might have found how she talked to her to be humiliating and insulting, had she been in a sounder state of mind, but right now, her voice is a reassuring lull in the cold silence of her quarters. 8XJ is warm and safe and close, and chases away the lonely feeling that's been gnawing away at her heartstrings for weeks. She closes her bleary eyes and concentrates on the touch of the rough, quartz hide, the rise and fall of the barrel chest, the heat of the breath on her face and hair. She doesn't feel fixed, but she feels a little less broken, at least for now.

8XJ leans down and touches her forehead to hers. She's seen the other quartzes do this, a show of affection, a display of growing trust, a sign of companionship.

"You don't have to be alone, Holly Blue."


End file.
